Imperfection
by ungallant deficient
Summary: When Peter starts to grow tired of Neverland, he's given an offer that he can never refuse. Can Wendy convince him to turn back before he's lost forever?
1. Acorn

"And the little mermaid turned into the foam on the crest of the waves, but her soul was met by the daughters of the air, and they told her that she could enter heaven because of what she did for her prince," Wendy said, with an air of finality, to the semicircle of boys crowded around her.  
  
"So she just dies? And that's it?" John asked, with a tinge of skepticism, and Wendy could see him push his glasses up the bridge of his maturing nose in the flicker kerosene lamplight.  
  
Michael was whimpering, as he always did after The Little Mermaid, yet he continued to request it, arguing that it was one of his favorites. Wendy smiled softly, pulling him up into her lap.  
  
It was getting harder and harder to lift him, each and every day, and it created some sort of dull ache deep inside her chest that Wendy couldn't seem to place. No matter how she tried to deny it, it seemed to creep up on her every corner she turned: her brothers, both Lost and otherwise, were growing up.  
  
And so was she. Barely fourteen and her mother had already managed to start pinning up her hair, trading her cotton muslin for silks and impractical sheers. Cinching her narrowing waist with corsets.  
  
"No, John… She became an immortal soul, which no other mermaid had ever done," she placed Michael down on his feet, standing herself, "Now, to bed. Mother'll get cross if we're late to breakfast in the morning."  
  
Wendy heard a chorus of mumbled "'Night, Mother," as she locked the window. Her skirts were long enough for her to have to hold them up as she left the nursery, pushing open the door to her own bedroom. She grabbed her nightgown from her dresser, not surprised when she felt a swoosh of air fly past her as Peter came in through her window.  
  
"Why does she have to die? Why can't the prince just love her in return? Like the tin soldier and the ballerina?" Peter asked, hovering over her bed. His voice was quieter than normal. He'd never understood The Little Mermaid.  
  
"Because…" Wendy said, halfway sighing as she retreated behind her dressing screen, and Peter had to try not to look at the shadows as he heard her corset-laces slip through their brackets.  
  
"I don't understand, Wendy."  
  
She emerged, grabbing her hairbrush and sitting down beside Peter. He could feel the mattress dip with her slight weight as she brushed her wavy hair, curls falling down onto the white shoulders of her nightgown, "You… cannot force love, Peter."  
  
He averted his eyes. He knew he ought to look at her when her voice got that soft and sad, but he couldn't bear it. Peter swallowed and turned back to her, watching her brush her hair with tired eyes.  
  
He fell asleep there, curled up on her bed. It happened every night, and Wendy figured he was lonely in Neverland, with no new Lost Boys to order about and no pirates to run through, though she suspected he never admit to it if questioned.  
  
She watched him, paler than normal in the moonlight and glow of her lamps. He'd grown too, albeit slowly, in his own Peter way, and she wondered when the magic of Neverland would finally halt his maturing, stopping it completely. Wendy wondered if it would be soon, when exactly the border between boy and man would be reached.  
  
Wendy kissed his forehead, and he curled up against her. Sometimes he'd cry in the middle of the night, dreaming about having a hook for a hand and being stuck in a body that was far too large for him. Dreaming of growing up and being lost. Wendy would pet back his tousled hair, just as she had in Neverland.   
  
In the morning, he'd always be gone, with one acorn kiss left on her pillow. 


	2. Warmth

Wendy turned over in her sleep, sighing heavily, reaching for the warm body next to hers. London seemed to be permanently frozen lately, covered with a thick layer of frost and snow. But, with Peter next to her, everything was warm. Peter sighed her name quietly, and Wendy had to stop her own breathing to hear it. A smile curved onto her face as he tangled his dirty hands into her hair.  
  
Her mother had asked her a month ago if she needed an extra blanket on her bed, and Wendy, with a smile, said no. Some unexplainable part of her liked how Peter had to curl into her to keep warm, tangling their limbs up together, how she could feel his breath stirring her hair.  
  
That night, Peter had no nightmares. He awoke the next morning to a dull gray sunrise, placing his usual acorn on the pillow. Peter hugged his knees to his chest and just sat there, watching his Wendy breathe. No matter how much he internally denied it, he no longer wished to return to Neverland. He was bored most of the time, shooting arrows at squirrels and catching fish in the lagoon. The mermaids could only offer so much conversation, and he had grown tired of repetitive pow-wows with Tiger Lily's tribe. Even the pirates had become tame, confused with what they were to do with themselves after Hook's death. The Jolly Roger floated there, bobbing slightly offshore, and Peter watched from the clouds as the pirates swabbed the deck or polished Long Tom, bored.  
  
Neverland had seemed… off, lately, and Peter silently wished for some fiend to come to his paradise, some inevitable evil to give him something to do. But, he wouldn't admit it, not even to Wendy. Neverland was his, and would always be his and no one else's.   
  
Peter smirked, twirling her soft hair in his fingers as he floated off of her bed, opening her window with a soft click. He's see her later that night, after he'd struggled to her window through a snowstorm of flurries or a thick layer of London fog. But, he'd always manage to make his way to the warmly lit Darling window, and would listen to a story of adventure and pirates and everything he'd ever known.  
  
Because Peter, of course, would never miss a story.  
  
… Or a night with his Wendy. 


	3. Sword

Peter scraped the stone across the silver of his blade, sharpening the edge to such a danger that it sliced the skin open on his forefinger when he tested it. Peter frowned, sticking his finger in his mouth and examining the blade before bringing it down harshly upon a guava fruit he'd collected for breakfast.  
  
His two other swords and three daggers lay, gleaming and sharpened at his feet with bits of melons and other fruits scattered on the forest floor beside him.  
  
Peter sighed, and it distinctly showed his blatant boredom. It seemed as though he'd been sharpening his weapons every day and he didn't even have anyone to properly use them on.  
  
He hovered only inches off the ground, and Tinker Bell came to land on his sword, her tiny feet dancing along the blade. She was far too light to be even scratched by it, and examined her glowing reflection in the metal. Tinker Bell looked up at Peter and fluttered her wings as she pointed to the other fairies heading toward their tree, as if they were about to celebrate something.  
  
"Eh, you know I'm going to see Wendy tonight, Tink," Peter said, trying to fight off the grin slowly spreading across his features, "She told me yesterday she's going to tell 'The Princess and the Pea' tonight, and I don't remember that one. Otherwise I'd go with you."  
  
She frowned, only slightly, and it passed so quickly that Peter barely caught it. She still became occasionally jealous of Peter's frequent visits to London, but grew tired of waiting up in her little house underground, sitting on his pillow with nothing to amuse herself but fading memories of pulling Wendy's hair. After all, fairies had both short memories and attention spans, and Tinker Bell decided she could spend her time elsewhere.  
  
She flew up to tug on Peter's earlobe affectionately, as she usually did, and he returned a smile in return as he pushed up from the ground and towards Neverland's ocean, watching as her light faded in the distance.  
  
Peter did twirls and somersaults in the air, as he normally did, for he liked nothing more than the feel of the twilight wind in his hair and on his arms. He scoffed down at the dimly lit Jolly Roger, though he saw no pirates on board.  
  
He had just returned his attention to the brighter-than-normal Neverland stars before he heard a colossal boom just below him, and white cannon smoke floated up to block his vision. A net wrapped around Peter Pan and brought him quickly and painfully onto the scratchy wooden deck of the Jolly Roger, with its crew standing proudly around their capture. 


	4. Dark

Wendy's face spread into a wide, toothy grin, far from the shy, coy smiles Aunt Millicent had deemed ladylike and proper for a girl of Wendy's blossoming age. Wendy could not help it, though, as she threw a glance over her shoulder to the frosted panes of the nursery window before smoothing her skirts and sitting down on Michael's bed. He climbed into her lap; his teddy bear gathered up in his arms, the Indian tribe's savage thread still showing around its worn neck. Wendy cleared her throat dramatically before diving into her version of Cinderella, Peter's favourite, with each and every one of her brothers' eager eyes shining up towards her as she described the swordfights and the way Cinderella ran from the ball only to meet up with now angered gang of pirates. Her voice made a crescendo to the perfect volume as she grabbed Nibs' now-wooden sword, brandishing it to mimic with her description of Cinderella's brave swordplay, describing with glistening eyes how Cinderella ran the pirates through with such grace she only lost one petite glass slipper. Wendy would, every now and then, glance towards the frozen windowpanes, hoping to see a glimpse of tousled blond hair or a cocky grin.

When her story was finished and she had turned down the lamps in the nursery, Wendy resumed her spot at the window in her room. She couldn't see the stars, no matter how hard she tried to see through the thickness of the London clouds. Not a single one permeated through the gray, and that scared her more than she thought it should have. He hadn't shown for two days, no matter how much Wendy glanced at the sky during her stories, or how long she sat at her window with her hands wringing in her lap.

Peter Pan did not come to her window, and Wendy had never been more worried.

__________________________________________________________________

When he woke up, Peter found himself on a dark, cold wooden floor that held that sort of old musty smell that belonged to only one thing in the whole of Neverland: the Jolly Roger. Peter squirmed against the rough ropes that still encased him, finding it easy to slip out, as he had more times than his fragile memory could recall.

He sighed, standing on legs made shaky by being curled up for so long. Peter stretched, rubbing his hands on his raw arms, his eyes scanning his surroundings as he tried to ignore the horrid thrumming against his skull where his head had connected with the deck of the pirate ship.

Suddenly, the cabin door opened with a loud _click_ and Peter nearly jumped in surprise. He quickly composed himself, reaching for the hilt of his sword but found the sheath to be empty, his hand grasping for nothing but air. He kept his hand in place, squinting menacingly toward the shadow that stood in the doorway, attempting to look ready for whoever was there and trying to stop the fluttering pulse of his heart. After all, Peter Pan did not get _frightened._

A hand reached to light the lamp, and as a flickering glow spread throughout the room, Smee's face came into view. He wore a smug grin on his face that Peter interpreted as pride for catching him when Captain Hook could not.

"'Ello, Pan," he said, in his Cockney accent, blending with something Peter couldn't place.

Peter's eyes squinted around the cabin, the candle on the wall somehow producing a dirty, dank light that barely cast away the shadows. He searched for any sort of weapon in the cabin that he now recognized in the light as Hook's old one. He walls had been stripped of their normal sword collections, cases full of daggers, vials of poisons. In fact, the whole cabin had been gutted of anything potentially dangerous, including the Captain's metal hooks and prized skull collections from past triumphs.

The crew of the Jolly Roger had been planning for him.

"I've got a proposition for you, Peter Pan."


End file.
